by A.man.I

If you keep up with me on Twitter or Facebook, then I’m sure you’re well aware of my family’s efforts to raise money for the March of Dimes on behalf of my twins who were born prematurely in 2006.

I’m proud to announce that my wife and I raised about $600.00 dollars during our three-day effort. We started the drive with about $550.00 dollars, and by late Sunday that number had doubled as you can see above.

We’ve asked friends and family to donate to Rico and Jordan’s “band” in the past, but this year I decided to step up my effort to raise money. This all came to me at the last moment, but I first decided to update the short documentary that I produced in 2007 to include the recent birth of our son Devin.

We uploaded the video to my wife’s Facebook account as well as my own, and tagged friends and family who we know personally to share the video with them. I also uploaded the video to my blip.tv account and placed in on my blog for my visitors to see. Additionally, Atlanta Daybook donated a press release about the fundraiser.

I don’t know how many people in total viewed the video but to date 74 saw the video via the blip.tv upload. If you know a way to view video metrics on Facebook, let me know. I received many comments from people in my Facebook network that they viewed the video and would thereafter support the cause.

Twitter seemed to be the most effective way to gain support during the effort. I Twittered about the fundraiser each day (Friday, Sat., and Sun.), giving updates about how much money was raised, and our overall goals. That generated a fair amount of conversations from people who both donated and wanted to help spread the word. It also seemed that donors would make contributions during my tweet-sprees.

Since my Twitter account is linked to FB, some of the conversations occurred there. One person made a donation after stating that they never thought to support the March of Dimes. It seems that most donors are friends of the family or people I’ve dealt with personally, and a few are casual associates, but they are people who I’ve met or communicated with in the past.

Another thing I tried to do is to ask some of my Twitter friends to re-tweet my messages. While most generally obliged, it didn’t seem that that method generated a significant amount of donations, however, it certainly helped raise awareness of our cause.

I’d like thank everyone who donated, and though my family suffered a big loss, we want you to think about supporting the March of Dimes rather than our personal situation. Over the years we’ve learned that many women, and families have experienced situations similar to ours, and premature birth really isn’t that rare.

We want you to support the March of Dimes because the organization is committed to helping babies live healthy lives. What is more important than that?

Again, we appreciate your continued support, and this won’t be the last time you hear me talk about my twins or the March of Dimes, because or goal is to raise $5000.00 this year.

We’ve only just begun.

If you haven’t done so yet, please make a donation now.

PEACE!!

Amani Channel